More Air Passengers Bring Guns; Development Puzzles TSA Screeners in This Age of Heightened Airport Security

Article excerpt

WASHINGTON * Several times every day, at airports across the
country, passengers are trying to walk through security with loaded
guns in their carry-on bags, purses or pockets, even in a boot. And,
more than a decade after 9/11 raised consciousness about airline
security, it's happening a lot more often.

In the first six months of this year, Transportation Security
Administration screeners found 894 guns on passengers or in their
carry-on bags, a 30 percent increase over the same period last year.
The TSA set a record in May for the most guns seized in one week 65
in all, 45 of them loaded and 15 with bullets in the chamber and
ready to be fired. That was 30 percent more than the previous record
of 50 guns, set just two weeks earlier.

Last year, the TSA found 1,549 firearms on passengers attempting
to go through screening, up 17 percent from the year before.

In response to a request from The Associated Press, the agency
provided figures on the number of firearm incidents in 2011 and 2012
for all U.S. airports, as well as the number of passengers screened
at each airport.

The TSA didn't keep statistics on guns intercepted before 2011,
but officials have noticed an upward trend in recent years, said
spokesman David Castelveter.

Some of the details make officials shake their heads.

As one passenger took off his jacket to go through screening in
Sacramento, Calif., last year, TSA officers noticed he was wearing a
holster, and in it was a loaded 9 mm pistol. The same passenger was
found to have three more loaded pistols, 192 rounds of ammunition,
two magazines and three knives.

Screeners elsewhere found a .45-caliber pistol and magazine
hidden inside a cassette deck. Another .45-caliber pistol loaded
with seven rounds, including a round in the chamber, was hidden
under the lining of a carry-on bag in Charlotte, N.C. A passenger in
Allentown, Pa., was carrying a pistol designed to look like a
writing pen. At first the passenger said it was just a pen, but
later acknowledged it was a gun, according to the TSA. …